


Someone Who Cares

by fhsa_archivist



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Challenge Response, Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-02
Updated: 2004-09-02
Packaged: 2019-02-05 18:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Author's Note: Pairing #51 at The Quickie Challenge - http://quickie.moonlitpaths.com . Also a response to someone's challenge on my list...I forgot who it was, though.





	Someone Who Cares

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

It had not been a smart thing to go walking through the dark alleys of St. Louis that fateful night, Willow knew that now. But, at the time, she was looking to do something dangerous, something on the edge. She had been, in a word, suicidal. If some common thug or creepy creep were to end her life as she wandered aimlessly - all the better. 

 

Her sense of survival was better than she reckoned, though, and her feet took her in an ever spiraling circle back towards more inhabited parts of the city, though these were not safe either. 

 

The Blood district. A tasteless name for the part of town that vampiric businesses made their homes in. 

 

Not once did she ask him how he knew she was back there, behind the club, just wandering; her attitude a flashing neon sign to any evil thing watching that she wanted to be killed. 

 

No - she never asked. 

 

And never would. 

 

It didn't really matter now. 

 

He had appeared out of nowhere, murmuring softly, asking what she was doing in such a dangerous part of town, by herself, wearing so little. She was an easy mark, he assured her softly; and this wasn't a good place for a lady to be wandering alone. 

 

A lady. 

 

He thought she was a lady. 

 

It almost made her laugh, right there in the alley, standing sinfully close to a man she knew was actually a vampire by the red tint to his aura. 

 

But she had let him lead her away from the alley, back out to the main streets of the district. He had offered to give her a ride home. She had, of course, declined; telling him she'd much rather take a taxi and thanking him for the trouble. 

 

Unfortunately, for her, he had only walked off into the shadows. He saw her when she waited for only a moment before wandering back off down the same alley he had pulled her from initially. It had really upset him, she knew in retrospect, to watch her throw her life away - literally. 

 

He had whispered to her in that delicate French accent, telling her she was a bright star in the heavens and that she did not want to keep wandering this path. Someone would take her up on what she was offering. 

 

"Good." She had told him, eyes blank. "I want to die. It's not hard. Here - you do it. Kill me, please. Just give me that release and I'll die blessing you." 

Well. That was the end of that. 

 

He took her home with him. 

 

She laughed at the thought of this place being a home, though that's what she considered it now, too. It was just a series of rooms under one of the largest vampire run entertainment venues in this part of the country. Just a series of rooms with a nice big bed, a dresser and wardrobe for clothing, a bathroom with a bathtub that she could, quite literally, drown in. . . and other decadently sinful things at her every beck and call. 

 

He had saved her. 

 

And she was willing to do anything to thank him for it, now that she had learned again what it was to care, to love. 

 

She smiled, pinning her hair up with a small black clip, glancing in the mirror next to the bed they had shared for months. He had never asked her for more than she was willing to give and had never even dared hint at what she was about to give to him tonight. The smirk she tossed into the mirror was reckless, daring, but tinged with something she had tried over and over to deny. 

 

Love. 

 

"Willow?" 

 

She turned, nearly stumbling over her own feet, her eyes flying to the doorway. 

And there he stood, blonde hair hiding what he thought to be tastelessly hideous scars. She had told him they were not, that they were still more beautiful than the scars that many carried, both on the inside and the out. He was stubborn, though. Just as he did not believe she could love him, he did not believe that she thought him handsome. 

 

"Asher." She smiled gently, crossing the room to greet him. A kiss to one cheek, then the other, as she pushed his hair back behind his shoulders. Here, of all places, he did not have to hide. She had not asked him to bring her here so many months ago, and she'd be damned if she would make him hide in his own rooms when he had done her such a large favor. The smile did not falter when his eyes ran up and down her body, taking in what she was wearing. . . 

 

Or, as the case was - *not* wearing. 

 

"Precious one, why is it that you are prancing around the rooms in the nude?" 

Willow pursed her lips in a thoughtful gesture and then gave him an impudent grin. 

 

"I'm not completely nude, silly." 

 

He raised an eyebrow, his eyes scouring her body again. 

 

"My forgiveness. You are, indeed, wearing something. The necklace I gave you." 

She smiled. 

 

"See! Told you! Not nude." 

 

"Then why, may I ask, are you traipsing about wearing nothing more than a fancy bauble?" 

 

Now her smile faded to something much more primitive, something fueled by the lusty desire she held for him in her heart, the one borne of the love she felt for him. 

 

"Because I'm going to seduce you, of course." 

 

~*~*~ 

 

Asher didn't know what to say. 

 

"Seduce me?" 

 

He watched her head go up, then down, nodding in agreement. 

 

Surely this was a joke. 

 

"Petite, I have never thought you to be cruel. . ." 

 

"Then why do you think so now?" She retorted. He felt her grab hold of his hand, saw her draw it to her lips, and then the kisses that she rained down upon his knuckles, her eyes never leaving his own. 

 

"Willow. . ." 

 

"No.... shhh...." She whispered. "Let me show you how much I care for you. Let there be no more doubting between us. . . not now, not ever. . . unless. . ." 

 

He watched as her face fell, some random thought passing through her mind as he knew they were wont to do at unforeseen times. 

 

"Unless. . ." She whispered again, eyes beginning to grow wet. "Unless you don't want *me*?" 

 

He laughed, once, short and hard. 

 

"How is it that we sleep together, in the same bed, and you do not know how I truly feel about you? You are the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me. I fell in love with you that night I found you walking through that cursed alley. It is you that -" 

 

She stopped him then, with a finger to his lips, her green eyes hard with an emotion he had never before had opportunity to see in the meek woman he had rescued. 

 

Resolve. 

 

"This is my resolve face." She murmured softly. "You've never seen it before because, well, I haven't had the will to use it. Nothing seemed that important. But . . . you are. . .you're worth it. Worth the pain that could come. . . the heartached." 

 

She dropped her finger from his lips, but Asher found he had nothing really to say. He was speechless. She did that to him, took all those eloquent words right from his mouth and wrapped them up, forbidding him from using them until she was done. 

 

Like now. 

 

He came quietly when she pulled him towards the bed, falling back onto it with a soft 'oof' of surprise when she pushed him. 

 

Her body fell upon him, naked flesh to silk; her lips crashing into his in a kiss that was anything but chaste. 

 

~*~*~ 

 

"I am yours." She whispered into his lips, pulling away to look down into his eyes. Her body yearned for him like no one else before. "For as long as you will have me. . . I am yours." 

 

And then she did what she had planned all along. 

 

She lifted her head, eyes closing, baring her neck to the creature beneath her, enticing him with the smooth beauty of her flesh. 

 

"Drink of me. . ." She murmured. "Let me feed you." 

 

~*~*~ 

 

He swallowed, struck in awe by both her beauty and her fearless offering of herself. 

 

"Willow. . . you don't know. . ." 

 

She shook her head just enough that he could see it, but not enough to break her pose. There was her neck, still so close, just out of reach of his mouth. But, if he were to lean upwards just a fraction. . . 

 

"I love you, Asher. Let no one else do this for you and you can have me. . .My blood is enough to keep you sated. . . if you'll allow me." 

 

She was offering to be his pomme de sang. She, the one that he had doubted loved him, was offering to be a willing participant in the sating of his blood lust. 

It was not an offer he could refuse. 

 

He felt her stiffen as his fangs first broke the surface of her skin, sliding home in the soft silk of her flesh. She moaned against him only a moment later as his power slid over her, riding her mind like a miniature orgasmic tidal wave. She was shuddering in his arms, caught up in the rapture of his kiss. 

And her blood. . . 

 

It tasted like nothing he had ever sampled before. 

 

She was power incarnate, darkness personified. 

 

And she hid it so well, controlling her magics so that, at times, he forgot what she was. 

 

Not tonight. 

 

It was impossible to forget what she was with her blood spilling into his mouth. Salty and sweet it coated his tongue, sliding down the back of his throat and infusing him with the power of her soul. He forced himself to pull away, unconsciously licking his lips with undisguised relish. 

 

"You like?" 

 

He smiled, eyes shut. 

 

"You did not have to do that, cherie." 

 

He heard her laugh. 

 

"Yes I did. Now you know how much I care for you, don't you?" 

 

He nodded and opened his eyes. She looked a little paler from the loss, but otherwise everything seemed fine. He knew, with that heady nourishment in his veins, that he would not need to feed from her for at least a week, maybe more. 

 

"No sinking fangs into anyone else anymore, k, Mister? I don't want no other girlies getting happies from you." 

 

Asher laughed and drew her to lay on his chest. 

 

"No worries, my Willow. No other women shall ever feel that from me again. 

You have my word." 

 

"Yay me. Nappy time now?" She yawned, her face scrunching up with the effort. 

 

"Sleep, cherie." 

 

He heard her whisper something in the affirmative before her soft breathing filled his ears. Chuckling softly, he placed a kiss on her forehead. 

 

"Sleep well, my love." 

 

~*~The End~*~


End file.
